Once a Booming Market, Educational Software for the PC Takes a Nose Dive – New York Times
“In 2000, sales of educational software for home computers reached $498 million, and it was conventional wisdom among investors and educators that learning programs for PC’s would be a booming growth market.Yet in less than five years, that entire market has come undone. By 2004, sales of educational software – a category that includes programs teaching math, reading and other subjects as well as reference works like encyclopedias – had plummeted to $152 million, according to the NPD Group, a market research concern.“
HP Reselling MySQL
Following on the heels of Novell and Dell, more vendor support for MySQL
HP now selling MySQL Network – Computerworld
Hewlett-Packard Co. is now reselling support services for MySQL AB’s open-source database, an HP spokeswoman has confirmed.
Law Lists Is No More
I remember Law Lists, put out by Lyonette Louis-Jacques, now at the U of Chicago Law School Library. Sad to see it go, but then I also remember when there was a list of all the known websites in the world…
RSS 3.0 Lite?
First Atom, now this. Quite the exciting week in feed land. Maybe I’ll write up a spec over the weekend, something like RSS 2/3.1. I wonder how to get Eweek to report it as if it were news? Anyway, I wonder what Dave will have to say?
Lightweight Version of RSS Released
“Shouldering past the community fear and loathing over Microsoft’s supposed plans to co-opt and rename its first implementation of the Web publishing technology, RSS editor Jonathan Avidan released a third, fully XML version of RSS for review and comment on Thursday.The RSS (Really Simply Syndication) 3 specification aims to fix perceived problems of inadequate documentation and “lack of concern towards modern necessities” in RSS 2.0.“
MySQL’s MaxDB: If You Need A ‘Real’ DB
freshmeat.net: Project details for MaxDB by MySQL
MaxDB is a re-branded and enhanced version of SAP DB, SAP AG’s open source database. It is a heavy-duty, SAP-certified open source database that offers high availability, scalability and a comprehensive feature set. MaxDB complements the MySQL database server, targeted for large mySAP ERP environments and other applications that require maximum enterprise-level database functionality. It is available for a wide range of platforms, including Linux on several different architectures and Windows.
Atom Becomes A ‘Proosed Standard’
The text of the new standard is here.
IETF Signs Off on Atom
“Rising above the bickering of competing syndication format loyalists, the IETF on Wednesday approved the Atom 1.0 data format as a “proposed standard.”“
Locking Down Linux Boxen
Good article that serves as a reminder of how relatively easy basic security is on a Linux box. Generally speaking if you limit local logins to a Linux box, you can prevent the vast majority of known exploits.
Top 10 CSS References List
Slashdot | 10 Best Resources for CSS
“Since one could have noticed an increasing number of websites that are employing CSS and an increasing number of resources talking about how great CSS is, it seems to become impossible not to jump on the CSS bandwagon as well. The 10 Best Resources for CSS provides an impressive list of the CSS resources which have recently become essential for web-developers. Among them – CSSZenGarden, The Web Developer’s Handbook, Stylegala, PositionIsEverything etc.“
Google Slows Down Digital Library Plans
This is one of the more reasoned reactions to the news that Google is slowing down its digital library plans in the face of complaints from copyright holders. Turns out the folks holding copyrights on works in those university libraries area bit skittish about having their works scanned by Google.
John Robb’s Weblog: Google vs. Publishers
“This battle has major repercussions. So far, it is being characterized as the classic x vs. y, that the media likes so much. It is more nuanced than that. It’s my understanding that Google is going to digitize and index all works, including copyrighted works not specifically excluded by the rights owners. If a work is copyrighted, Google will only display a short snippet and a link to a book store (or perhaps local library) where you can buy/borrow it. This is hardly “posting the work to the Internet,” and more like an upgrade to the Dewey decimal system.“
Novell Announces New Product Lifecycle Policy
The new policy gives 7 year support lifecycles to Novell’s OS products including SuSE Linux Enterprise Server.
NOVELL: Product Support Lifecycle
“Novell’s Product Support Lifecycle provides consistent and predictable support availability guidelines, allowing you to effectively plan and manage your support needs. This lifecycle model took effect on 3 August 2005 and applies to most products currently available on Novell’s price list. To verify the lifecycle dates for a specific product, search in the “support status by product” tool on the right column of this page.“